


the curse of permanent ink

by xxcaribbean



Category: One Direction (Band), Real Person Fiction
Genre: Drabble, Fame, M/M, in which zayn finds solace in liam, ziam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2017-12-04 01:02:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxcaribbean/pseuds/xxcaribbean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>fame has always been a little too much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the curse of permanent ink

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blurrychildren (roadsider)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roadsider/gifts).



> [tumblr](http://hazzasweet.tumblr.com)

he's broken promises and whispered lies, and it wasn't always like this.

it'd been smaller hours and happy smiles with warmness that encased a pure heart.

but the flashes and the black and white letters changed it all. anonymous sources and those climbing the fame ladder to destroy something so delicate, has picked his shell apart, leaving it cracked and dented, where smooth skin that is raw and red from the lashings of enemies that sway with their tongue and prove their truth with induced intent, has bled and scabbed over. 

he picks at them one by one, and cries out because each one is designed so carefully to hurt him; so as he tears away at the labels that mare that beautiful skin, that had once been a full human who was so strong, so confident in every endeavor, who now walks with his head ducked, chin tucked into the color of his jacket where the warmth brings him a sense of peace and security.

zayn doesn't mean for it to become a habit. it just occurs quite suddenly, quite naturally and sometimes he feels like he's in over his head. there's only so much one can chip off their shoulder, trying to repair a much greater damage that has been done. and it's not that he isn't grateful. he tries so hard that maybe it comes off a little too arrogant, a little too well-defined.

he'd like to believe he can act, but he can feel himself withdrawing, slipping away into a level of ease for himself, one he never thought he'd come to rely on because while his life is too good to be true, a quick happening that molded his young mind too curtly, presented itself in the form of his dream. the very one he thought he'd never get to see.

so when zayn feels like his hands are soiled with his own blood full of verbal abuse and the tainted minds who believe he is no better than the dirt beneath his feet because his skin is nearly that color, so they claim, all he has to do is turn around and find  _him_ , the one physical representation that good continues to exist regardless of the fact that zayn feels like he's lost that part of himself long ago.

liam doesn't stand in the shadows, but instead burns brightly with his smile and certainty that everyone has decency within them. and sometimes zayn is selfish and will pull liam away from the rest of the boys, cower against his side and breathe him in through his nostrils to smell his scent and hope that maybe some of that gratifying admirability that people see in liam will wash over zayn and he'll be looked at with new eyes instead of knocked to the ground by the hatred.

people love liam, just as zayn loves him too, but he'd like to think he's staked his claim first, that whatever stigma that has been the entire existence of a boy with a crinkled smile and dirty blonde hair will be the first to touch zayn before anyone else can get to him.

and he worries for the both of them, wonders if he is being selfish for holding liam close and burying his face in between the crook of his neck. he can feel the black ink run down his arms and stain the shirt that liam wears, inch by inch and sometimes he questions whether liam will get angry, when he'll shove him back and tell him that this can't work between them any longer because it's too many stains to handle at once.

but he doesn't. instead liam bears his struggle and stands by his side. it's kept between the two of them, in their own privacy and what little they have left of it, but it soothes zayn and helps him see that little by little, every time a new crack resurfaces, it heals much faster with a touch of a warm hand and a smile so mesmerizing, it melts all of zayn's insides.

and he wonders if he'd like to go back to before, to the boy who'd had no scars, nothing that covered his skin, the pureness that made him everything he was.

but then that would mean forfeiting, giving up such a wonderful life he's been given, and although he curls in on himself most days when he sees the graffiti that sprays across the headlines of another newspaper intended to sell itself to make a profit, he thinks about going back and giving it up until he's reminded that while he pokes and prods at himself, and he suffers with the unnecessary aspect of his band's cultural phenomenon, he's got something so much better than before.

because that boy he'd once been would eventually grow up too and realize that he'd end up with the same scars and bruises and blood stained black from words and actions taken by people who'd side-eye him in a market place in fear and ignorance, with no one but friends to help him along with it.

and this zayn, the one who he is now, has a band-aide so big that he wouldn't ever choose to go back to a time where things were simple and easy because what is suffering by itself if there isn't anyone there to share the grief that one may be feeling?

zayn has liam and he hopes it's the same the other way around, when the occasional sticks have been thrown and leave splinters in liam's skin. zayn will be there to flesh them out, to kiss the pink of the wound and cover himself completely in liam so his boyfriend,  _his_  liam knows exactly what he's done for zayn.

so liam knows and understands the kind of healing, the kind of friend, the kind of lover he's always been to zayn.


End file.
